The consensus on r/aviation seems to be that it was caused by wind shear.
> This looks like wind shear to me. It was a stable approach and then it suddenly got slammed into the ground. That doesn't look like pilot-induced change in descent rate, it is too sudden for that. A sudden change in wind direction (shear) when that slow can absolutely cause a sudden loss of lift.
> We have had almost 2 feet of snow up here since Friday, and are experiencing wind gusts up to 65 mph. Has basically been a winter hurricane.
> This is a CRJ landing on Runway 23 at YYZ. It is an 11,000’ runway. Winds at the time where gusting from the NE likely north of 30 knots, so this was a cross wind landing. My bet is that it wasn’t the worst situation that any of the pilots had been in. Delta is a pretty good company. Guessing (as a GA pilot and talking to pilots of bigger birds than this —- I know a few). Likely wind shear or wake turbulence. The wake turbulence part would be a reach considering the cross wind component would have blown it away by the time of this landing.
I stitched together a small audio clip from LiveATC with both the Ground and Tower frequencies mapped to the Left and Right audio channels. It starts around the time the aircraft was cleared to land, and then skips forward to the moment the controllers realized the aircraft crashed.
Here is a link to the .mp3 file (it's on Discord for now - I don't know if this is allowed, let me know if it isn't):
That's incredible. The plane literally turned over and burnt but no casualty. The flight staff must have done as amazing job keeping everyone calm and helped everyone get out of the upside, burning plane.
Compare this crash to the Emirates crash in Dubai (EK 521, 2016). In the Emirates incident, the passengers stalled the evacuation in order to grab their carry-ons. Many were seen on the tarmac dragging roll-aboards. Here the passengers chose life over property and efficiently evacuated the aircraft.
I've been looking for a video of the landing to see how it over turned, but haven't found one yet. I would have expected all airport runways to have multiple security cameras pointing at them t all times in this day and age.
Is there a reason why airport cameras seem to always be crappy? You'd think they would be required to maintain high quality cameras with dozens covering each runway to study every aspect of the operation, not just accidents.
It's going to be interesting to hear how the plane ended up flipped upside down. There's ice on the ground so maybe a skid on braking resulting in hitting something near the runway causing the flip.
It's mystifying that any airport with commercial service doesn't have cameras with a full view of every runway recording 100% of the time.
You can't steal a catalytic converter without being on video. We have webcams placed behind eagles' nests in our national parks. Yet somehow we have no recordings of plane crashes at our airports.
Then of course there's the lack of cameras on the planes themselves...
Aviation A2Z reporting that this was a no-flap landing due to a flap actuator failure. Hard to tell in the videos posted if that is the case, but would explain the hard landing.
1) Descent rate was way too high.
2) No ‘flare’
3) left wing angled upward forced right landing gear to absorb all force, resulting in hard shock to the body and then ground roll, tearing off both wings.
4) If 1-3 are true, landing pilot (could be actual pilot or FO) is incompetent
5) Thank god everyone got out alive
Plane crashes, overturns during landing at Toronto airport
(cbc.ca)567 points by jaredwiener 17 February 2025 | 704 comments
Comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/1isabt...
Which also brings into mind cockpit distractions but its amazing they caught this on video.
> This looks like wind shear to me. It was a stable approach and then it suddenly got slammed into the ground. That doesn't look like pilot-induced change in descent rate, it is too sudden for that. A sudden change in wind direction (shear) when that slow can absolutely cause a sudden loss of lift.
> We have had almost 2 feet of snow up here since Friday, and are experiencing wind gusts up to 65 mph. Has basically been a winter hurricane.
> This is a CRJ landing on Runway 23 at YYZ. It is an 11,000’ runway. Winds at the time where gusting from the NE likely north of 30 knots, so this was a cross wind landing. My bet is that it wasn’t the worst situation that any of the pilots had been in. Delta is a pretty good company. Guessing (as a GA pilot and talking to pilots of bigger birds than this —- I know a few). Likely wind shear or wake turbulence. The wake turbulence part would be a reach considering the cross wind component would have blown it away by the time of this landing.
Here is a link to the .mp3 file (it's on Discord for now - I don't know if this is allowed, let me know if it isn't):
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/668315121772134401/13...
* Approach seems mostly unobjectionable (reasonable rate of descent, plausible looking approach speed)
* Runway not especially slick
* May have touched down short and left of centerline
Hope for a preliminary report from Canada Transportation Safety Board in a couple weeks.
Pilot Blog as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIhEIUrTLco
He suspects landing speed may have been too low, making it impossible to flare correctly.
(Both channels are former airline pilots.)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=617972644350232
Unverified reports by another pilot are that the plane struck a wing then sort of cart wheeled
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=617972644350232
/r/aviation thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1irsmp8/airplane_...
Have there been any recent with major commercial jets yet ?
You can't steal a catalytic converter without being on video. We have webcams placed behind eagles' nests in our national parks. Yet somehow we have no recordings of plane crashes at our airports.
Then of course there's the lack of cameras on the planes themselves...
Also, posted later as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43083016
https://liveandletsfly.com/delta-crash-toronto/
I'm quite sure I have heard about more plane accidents in the last two years than in the entire fourty years of my life before that. This is absurd.
what's the root cause
Which leads to my repeated bafflement as to why there are no video cameras constantly pointed at flight ops at the airport.
If every 7-11 can have a security cam recording hi-def 24/7, why can't a couple of these be mounted in the tower pointed at the tarmac?
I feel like major airline crashes are usually headlines.